Want to choose the best career options but not sure how to get them? We’ve picked out some tips to help you discover your dream job and easily find out how to achieve it.
There are times you may feel frustrated, as if you are no closer to finding direction than when you started. If you’re going through the process, you are making progress. Each area you explore takes you closer to the best career options that are a good fit.
Some of us are drawn to specific career paths from a young age. For others, choosing the best career options can be a slightly more complex matter. The sheer number of different options can be overwhelming, with the fear of making the wrong career choice very real. This variety also means, however, that it’s highly likely that there will be an ideal job out there for everyone. It’s just a matter of identifying the professional development plan and taking the first steps.
In order to do so, it can be beneficial to take a strategic approach. Here’s a step-by-step guide to choosing your career strategically:-
Step No. 1 – Self-assessment
The first step to choosing the best career options is to understand your own skills, interests, and ambitions.
Establishing these will give you some much-needed clarity. Understanding your own desires and abilities is a big step towards choosing a career. Speak to colleagues, friends, and others who know you in different capacities. They will be able to give you insights into yourself of which you may well not be aware. Don’t be afraid to ask about your weaknesses, too. Understanding the wrong career environment will help you narrow down the right one.
Four Components of Self-Assessment-
- Skills: Skills are the strengths of an individual. Many skills are transferable – meaning they can be used across a wide range of industries and functional areas. For example, communication skills are valued in all roles, making them highly transferable. It’s important to take the time to identify your skills and how those may connect with the best career options.
- Interests: Your interests may change as you are introduced to new areas of study and a new career development plan. Reflecting on your interests, in conjunction with your skills, personality, and values, is an important step in the self-assessment process. Use the questions below to begin your reflection.
- What activities do you attract towards?
- Who is your role model, and why?
- What issues or causes are more important to you?
- When have you been happiest in life? What were you doing?
- What classes have been your favorites, and what appealed to you about those classes?
- Who do you admire most and why?
- Personality: Every person is different. Each one has a unique personality.
Your unique characteristics influence your thoughts, behaviors, decisions, and engagement with the world. A perfect career development plan for one person may be totally wrong for another.
Are you an introvert or an extrovert? How much interaction with others do you need in your work?
- Do you prefer imagining possibilities and being creative?
- Do you enjoy handling practical matters, legal matters, or technical matters?
- Values: Making choices consistent with your values is a key component of career satisfaction. Take time to define what your values mean to you. For example, if you want to do something for a country or you are a disciplined person, you can choose your career in the army or sports person.
After doing your self-assessment, you will get to know about your interests and values.
Step No. 2 – Identify And Research Options
Now, you have to match your skills and values with various career options. Explore the range of best career options, and don’t limit yourself to careers with which you are familiar. In this, you can take the help of people whom you know, and you can also use the internet to explore various types of career development plans.
If you want to do a job, then search for companies in the area where you want to do the job. Learn about different company cultures and skills that they demand and try to learn those skills.
You could also seek out career counselors or recruitment agencies to see what they would recommend.
Step No. 3 – Evaluate And Prioritize
Now, it’s time to refine this list. You need to weigh up the pros and cons of each career option. If possible, speak to people who currently work in the field. Ask around to see if there’s anyone in your more comprehensive network. If not, use online forums or LinkedIn to get in touch to ask if those working in related jobs can answer a few questions.
You can do a SWOT analysis or PEST analysis for this. SWOT means Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. PEST analysis stands for political, economic, social, and technological factors.
To do this, divide a large square into four quadrants. In the top half, map out your relevant strengths and weaknesses. This should be fairly straightforward. Then, in the bottom half, opportunities and threats.
Consider opportunities that could help you take steps along this career path, as well as threats that may be huddled in your professional career development.
Opportunities might be connections you have or access to relevant courses. Or they could relate to the general health of the industry itself.
Threats may include financial barriers to entry or a shortage of entry-level jobs.
If the strengths and opportunities outweigh the weaknesses and threats (in weight, not necessarily quantity), then you might be onto a winning career path.
Step 4: Take Action And Try Options
Now it’s time to try out these best career options and gain some experience through internships, part-time jobs, and experience with student organizations.
Enroll in different courses and learning programs to develop the skills to choose a career path. You can enroll yourself in part-time work to check your interest level.
For example, many organizations need content writers and staff to manage finances, develop multimedia, create illustrations and take pictures, oversee design and layout, manage printing and distribution, maintain websites, do video editing, and generate ad revenue.
Step 5: Reflect And Re-evaluate
During and after an experience, take time to evaluate and reflect.
- What was enjoyable? What was not?
- Were there aspects of the experience challenging and in which you excelled?
- Was it the work or something to do with the people that made it enjoyable?
Conclusion- If you’re taking time to reflect, you’re also learning more about the type of work and environment you will find most satisfying. A degree of flexibility may be necessary. Perhaps things may not work out as you expect in your career plan. There is the genuine possibility of facing setbacks along the way. Where possible, you should include some backup options.
There are multiple routes along any career path – or you may want to find a new one altogether. Your priorities or passions may change as you progress. You may become aware of the best career options.
If you find yourself in this position, follow the above steps again. You may find the outcomes are pretty different…
